Nick Ressler

Eastern Notes: Simmons, Porzingis, Hawks, Fernando, Sixers

June 29th, 2023 at 9:30pm CST by Alex Kirschenbaum

Nets guard Ben Simmons will not partake in this year’s World Cup, Basketball Australia has announced in an official statement (Twitter link).

According to Basketball Australia, Brooklyn and Simmons have opted to withhold the former No. 1 overall pick so that he can continue to rehabilitate his ailing back ahead of the 2023/24 NBA season. Net Income of Nets Daily writes that the club is hopeful Simmons will be recovered by the start of September, just in time for training camp.

The former All-Star appeared in just 42 games for Brooklyn in 2022/23 after returning from back surgery, averaging 6.9 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 6.1 APG, 1.3 SPG and 0.6 BPG in 26.3 MPG.

There’s more out of the Eastern Conference:

New Celtics big man Kristaps Porzingis is excited about his new opportunity to play for a perennial Eastern Conference contender, writes Tim Bontemps of ESPN. Porzingis explained his decision to opt into his $36MM option for next season, which helped enable his trade from the Wizards. “[It was] an opportunity to play for a really good team already and be able to add to that,” Porzingis said. “And hopefully to help these guys, make their life easier, and being on a high-level organization like Boston, historic franchise, iconic franchise, it made it extremely easy for me to make that decision.”
The Hawks have made some changes to their front office personnel, Atlanta has announced in a press release. Longtime league agent Chris Emens is joining the team as an executive advisor. The Hawks are also adding Blake Johnson as the club’s director of player engagement. Atlanta also revealed that a variety of executives have been promoted to new positions: vice president of player personnel Dotun Akinwale Jr.; senior vice president of salary cap administration Michelle Leftwich; vice president of basketball operations Grant Liffmann; senior vice president of team operations Dan Martinez; vice president of player personnel and basketball intelligence Tori Miller; principal advisor to the governor Nick Ressler; and vice president of cap strategy/player personnel Ryan Silverstein.
The Hawks have pushed back reserve center Bruno Fernando‘s salary guarantee deadline from June 29 to July 10, reports Lauren L. Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (via Twitter). Upon being shipped to Atlanta in February from Houston, the 6’9″ big man appeared in just eight contests for the team, averaging 3.4 PPG and 1.9 RPG in 5.1 MPG. Fernando will receive his full $2.58MM salary for 2023/24 if he remains under contract through July 10.
Assistant coaches Fabulous Flournoy and Toure’ Murry are joining new Sixers head coach Nick Nurse‘s bench, a team source has informed Noah Levick of NBC Sports Philadelphia. The addition of another assistant, Doug West, had previously been reported.

Southeast Notes: Hawks, Ressler, Wagner, Martin, Heat

March 4th, 2023 at 8:47am CST by Luke Adams

As we outlined on Friday, Hawks owner Tony Ressler conducted a series of media interviews this week to discuss the team’s recent front office and head coaching changes. We passed along a few highlights from his discussions with ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but Ressler also spoke on Friday to Jeff Schultz of The Athletic, who pushed him a little harder on the role that his son Nick Ressler has within the Hawks’ front office.

Reporting from The Athletic earlier this year suggested that Nick Ressler – Atlanta’s director of business and basketball operations – had gained “increasing influence” in the Hawks’ front office and that not everyone was comfortable with that. Pressed on the issue by Schultz, Tony Ressler pushed back on the notion that his son has an outsized voice in decision-making and that other executives aren’t happy with Nick’s role.

“Who? Do they still work here?” the Hawks’ owner responded when Schultz said The Athletic had spoken to people who were uncomfortable with his son’s level of influence. “Look, the idea that you’re using former employees for a narrative that is untrue. The simple answer is we have a front office today that works beautifully, where Nick is one of many voices and frankly an unbelievably positive and supportive voice. And if you ask anyone who works here they would tell you yes.

“… We have a fairly large basketball ops that values a whole bunch of voices and Nick’s one of them. … What he is is a great kid who works his ass off and is one of the many voices that feed into (assistant GM) Kyle (Korver) and (GM) Landry (Fields).

“Am I partial? Maybe. But if I didn’t think he was a positive influence to this franchise, he wouldn’t be here. … It’s very important to me that perception is similar to reality. When you say I give a disproportionate amount of influence to my son, that’s just a f—ing lie, because I would be running a lesser business than I’m capable of.”

Here’s more from around the Southeast:

The Magic lost their second-leading scorer on Friday, as Franz Wagner left the game in Charlotte early due to a left ankle sprain. According to Khobi Price of The Orlando Sentinel, X-rays on the ankle were negative, which is good news, but Wagner still may have to miss some time as a result of the injury.
Kevin Love has started all five games since he arrived in Miami, but the Heat have lost four of those games and the new starting five of Love, Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, and Gabe Vincent has a net rating of minus-9.4 so far. As Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald writes, that same group with former starter Caleb Martin in Love’s place has a plus-18.6 net rating this season. For his part, Martin is still getting used to his new bench role. “It’s a little different, man,” he said on Friday. “… It’s just adjusting to whatever is going on. It’s also more of a role of gassing yourself out, being that spark coming off the bench as opposed to maintaining.”
The much-vaunted Heat culture is being tested by the team’s inconsistent performances as of late, with Butler suggesting after Friday’s loss to New York that Miami needs to play with more urgency. “We really get bored with the process and I can’t tell you why. We play hard and sometimes we get back in the game like we did tonight and sometimes we don’t,” Butler said, according to Chiang. “But either way it goes, if we just play basketball the right way the entire game, I don’t think we’re in this situation more often than not. But for some odd reason, we think it’s going to be easy so we just go out there and go through the motions.”

Hawks Notes: Resslers, Front Office, Snyder, Young, Bogdanovic

March 3rd, 2023 at 6:15pm CST by Luke Adams

Hawks owner Tony Ressler believes his team has underachieved this season, which is why he decided to overhaul the front office and signed off on the new group’s plan to replace head coach Nate McMillan with Quin Snyder, he tells Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

According to Ressler, he’s staying out of basketball decisions and has given new general manager Landry Fields the autonomy to make those calls. The Hawks’ owner said he removed Travis Schlenk from his role as the team’s head of basketball operations because he wasn’t happy with the front office’s level of “collaboration and communication,” per Wojnarowski.

“I can tell you this: Landry and (assistant GM) Kyle (Korver) are running a much better, much more collaborative front office,” Ressler said. “That’s of huge importance to me because I think that’s how you get better. Having ownership, a front office, a coaching staff and the right roster — when all of those folks work well together, I think results improve. That was the objective and that’s why I made the change that I did.”

There has been some skepticism about the new-look Hawks’ front office due to the relatively inexperienced nature of the head executives, along with the reported empowerment of Tony’s son Nick Ressler. However, the elder Ressler expressed full confidence in the new group.

“What I’ve always done is rely on people who know more than I do to run a business better than I could,” Ressler said to ESPN. “Who makes the decisions (now), it’s undoubtedly Landry with Kyle — with (head coach) Quin (Snyder). (They) are going to work beautifully together from what I can tell. I do believe we will make better decisions going forward than we have done in the past.”

Here’s more on the Hawks:

In a separate interview with Lauren Williams of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ressler insisted that his son Nick’s influence in the basketball operations department has been overstated. “Nick works in the organization, helps me in both the business and basketball operations, helps me understand the goings-on of the organization, if you will, helps me evaluate what we’re doing,” Tony said. “But he sits in the same role (I do). He’s in ownership, but is full time to the organization. So the simple answer, is ‘No, he’s not in charge of any (basketball) decision-making.'”
Although the Hawks have made some roster moves this year that seemed aimed at avoiding the luxury tax, Ressler insists those moves weren’t driven by him. “We’re not worried about the luxury tax,” he told Williams. “… Do I think it’s a good idea to be incredibly average (and) in the luxury tax? I’d rather not. I’d rather be contending in the luxury tax or being a great team in the luxury tax. But at the end of the day, I’ve never suggested a trade to get out of the luxury tax ever. Whoever said that will be giving you an untruth, directly, indirectly, intentionally, unintentionally. Never said it. Never will.”
Rival executives lauded the Hawks for the hiring of Snyder, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype, who spoke to Williams for the latest HoopsHype podcast. There have been suggestions that Snyder may have taken the job in part to have a bigger say in roster changes — when Williams spoke to Snyder she got the impression that while Fields and Korver will “weigh his opinion pretty heavily,” but she doesn’t believe Snyder’s voice will be the “end all and be all.”
Williams also touched on the slow-developing chemistry of Trae Young and Dejounte Murray, saying “they’re still learning from each other” and suggesting that the two guards may not have a close relationship. Williams is surprised by that because Young was eager to team up with Murray in the offseason. Williams says Young “is a nice guy,” but has heard “sometimes he has some trouble endearing himself to his teammates off the court,” though she says people like playing with him.
Veteran wing Bogdan Bogdanovic is expected to decline his $18MM player option for 2023/24 and enter unrestricted free agency, says Scotto. Williams is a little skeptical Bogdanovic will exceed $18MM per year on his next contract due to his injury history, but Scotto believes he could at least equal, if not exceed, that total on annual basis, noting that the salary cap is expected to go up each year for the foreseeable future. It could be tricky for Atlanta to re-sign Bogdanovic, Scotto adds, citing luxury tax concerns.

Rory Maher contributed to this post.

Hawks Rumors: Schlenk, Ressler, Murray, Collins

January 13th, 2023 at 10:11am CST by Luke Adams

The Hawks‘ impending promotion of Kyle Korver to assistant general manager is just one of many changes taking place in the team’s front office this season, writes Sam Amick of The Athletic.

According to Amick, although the Hawks announced last month that Travis Schlenk would be moving into an advisory role after stepping down from his president of basketball operations position, league sources tell The Athletic that Schlenk is no longer part of the operation in Atlanta and is free to leave for another team if he so chooses.

Nick Ressler, the 27-year-old son of Hawks owner Tony Ressler, has had “increasing influence” on both roster and staffing decisions since becoming the franchise’s director of business and basketball operations in December 2020, Amick explains, adding that the younger Ressler’s “effect on the decision-making process” was a factor in Schlenk’s departure.

Amick describes the Dejounte Murray trade as the “beginning of the end” for the previous regime in Atlanta, reporting that Schlenk expressed reservations about the price the team paid for the former Spurs guard (three first-round picks, including two unprotected, and a pick swap). Nick Ressler was the driving force behind that move, per Amick.

The “messiness” involving head coach Nate McMillan in early December also played a part in ownership’s final decision on Schlenk, according to Amick, who adds that Tony Ressler may bring in a more experienced executive at some point to help fill out a fairly green front office. There has also been plenty of chatter about the possibility of the Hawks adding more former players to their basketball operations department, tweets Jake Fischer of Yahoo Sports.

Here’s more on the Hawks:

Atlanta has been one of the NBA’s most active teams in trade talks in recent weeks and is very much in the market for immediate help, as opposed to trying to recoup draft picks, Amick writes. It’s clear the Hawks’ priority is still to win as soon as possible despite a disappointing start to this season (the team’s record is 19-22).
Rival executives who have spoken to the Hawks about John Collins indicate that the asking price has come down considerably compared to where it was in past years, says Amick. League sources tell The Athletic that there are some scenarios in which Atlanta is simply asking for a quality player in return for Collins, as opposed to that player plus draft capital.
Speaking to Amick, Collins referred to Schlenk’s “advisory role” using air quotes and suggested that the Hawks’ players hadn’t received a full explanation for the front office changes. Murray, meanwhile, admitted that his first season in Atlanta has been more turbulent than he anticipated. “I mean, there’s a lot going on (that’s) non-basketball,” Murray said. “And then with basketball, you’ve got guys in trade rumors.”
Here’s more from Murray on that outside noise: “I wouldn’t say more than what I expected, but more than where I came from in San Antonio where everything was just not as loud. There’s a lot going on, but for me I’m just trying to keep guys together with my leadership, showing up to work, working hard, being vocal and keeping us together, and trying to keep the outside noise the outside noise. But at the end of the day, we all see it. You can’t hide. You can’t run from it. … At the end of the day, winning takes care of it all. So we need to control what we can control, continue to come together as brothers, and try to go out and win basketball games.”

Hawks Extend, Promote Travis Schlenk

August 19th, 2019 at 3:39pm CST by Luke Adams

3:39pm: The Hawks have formally issued a press release announcing that they’ve promoted Schlenk to president of basketball operations. The announcement doesn’t mention an extension, but it seems safe to assume that it’s official now too.

The Hawks also announced many more promotions and hires, including (but not limited to):

Dan Martinez to VP of team operations
Derek Pierce to VP of player personnel
Dotun Akinwale Jr. to director of scouting
Mike McNeive to director of player personnel
Daniel Starkman to senior manager of basketball operations
Nick Ressler to manager of basketball operations

“We are extremely pleased with the direction that Travis and our entire basketball operations team has us heading as a franchise,” Hawks owner Tony Ressler said in a statement. “He has used the draft to build an impressive young core, hired one of the NBA’s top young coaches in Lloyd Pierce and positioned us to have the cap space, draft picks and financial flexibility needed to have long-term success in the NBA.”

2:39pm: The Hawks have reached a deal with general manager Travis Schlenk on a new multiyear contract extension, reports Zach Klein of WSB-TV (Twitter link). Confirming Klein’s report, Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes that an official announcement from the team will likely come within the next day or so.

Schlenk took over as Atlanta’s head of basketball operations during the spring of 2017 after the team re-assigned GM Wes Wilcox and removed Mike Budenholzer‘s president of basketball operations title.

Since joining the Hawks, Schlenk has launched a full-fledged rebuild, accumulating draft assets and making strong use of his own first-round picks, having selected John Collins in 2017 and Trae Young and Kevin Huerter in 2018.

It remains to be seen whether this year’s lottery picks (De’Andre Hunter and Cam Reddish) will look as promising as Collins, Young, and Huerter have, and Schlenk faced some criticism for trading the pick that became Luka Doncic. Still, the former Warriors executive has the Hawks pointed in the right direction as one of the NBA’s up-and-coming teams.

After going 24-58 during Schlenk’s first year running the show, the team won 29 games last season and will look to improve upon that number in 2019/20.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.